A prize goes on the first day of a promotion; and is podcasting going to eat radio?

Fun to see a crossover between @worldworldpics, my (rapidly ageing) collection of ‘World’s, and the world of radio thanks to Brisbane’s 4ZZZ.

• Will podcasting eat radio?, I asked this week. I’m not convinced that radio companies across the world are doing enough.

United States

• Student-run radio finds a fan

• Here’s why radio in cars - particularly DAB and HD - needs to get better and simpler

• AM radio is doing well in Puerto Rico - at least temporarily

• Some radio stations have just been bought using crypto-currency in the US (see page 4). Because why not.

• ‘Why are listeners choosing Pandora or Spotify over radio?’ - interesting article, particularly for the comments. Odd, too, seeing such a negative leading question (and one that is currently not actually factually correct) from a radio industry title.

United Kingdom

• Big radio job here, with a big budget and strong talent. Wow.

• What’s It Like to be a Guest on Question Time? - some nice background from Iain Dale

• At PRS for Music, broadcast revenue is up 8.5%. (Curious - that’s significantly higher than commercial radio revenue has increased). Trebles all round!

• Nik Goodman on That Bauer Announcement

• Want to watch some decent (and recent) TV ads for radio stations? Here are some…

• ‘DAB radio was the future … until live streaming and podcasts arrived’, says The Conversation. Possibly in need of a fact check, this story; DAB’s four times as large as “live streaming and podcasts” in the UK. Bet nobody picks them up on it, though.

• Compare My Radio - surprised to discover this is still going. Very useful tool for comparing UK radio music policies.

Australia

• Lucky listener, unlucky radio station, as a prize goes on the first play of the mechanic. Oops!

• Important biscuit news update, courtesy of the nation’s broadcaster

• I apppear to have missed this car crash of an interview on 4BC and 2GB with Alan Jones.

• Imagine if this government inquiry were to happen in the UK with the BBC… and I’m not, for a moment, suggesting it should. It’s curious how much of the Australian government is driven by Rupert Murdoch, even still.

  • Earlier, the government gave $30m to Murdoch’s Foxtel, to pay for sports programming (that will be behind the Foxtel paywall). Inexplicably, this isn’t seen as much of a scandal.

Elsewhere

• India: VTION pulls data from smartphones to provide real-time radio analytics to advertisers. This is a clever use of data, if it can be extrapolated to reflect the full audience.

• South Africa: 15 radio stations were taken off-air for not paying their transmission bills. They’re back on-air now.

• TIL there was such a thing as ‘public radio cake week’ in the US.

• Japan: Today, I was honoured to speak on Tokyo’s J-WAVE 30th Anniversary Special with John Kabila. Special day for Tokyo radio listeners.

• If live broadcast is so important for radio, why do you only have one live broadcast? asks Tommy Ferraz.

• Denmark: WARM - World Airplay Radio Monitor - clever idea for musicians, this: you can monitor individual songs played on the radio.

• Broadcaster? Want to be on DAB+ in Milan, Italy? Here’s how…

• Which songs in your station’s playlists are getting cranked up? - really clever idea, this, by Nobex. Monitor the volume control and all kinds of nice things happen.

Canada-eh - I’ll be at CRAFT Market in Vancouver on Tuesday May 1st from 5.30pm. Primarily an event for Podnews, come and meet up with podcasters and audio types, and buy someone nice a beer.

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